We remember..

Today for 9/11 we lit candles in remembrance of those who gave their life on that horrible day and for everyone who has given their life for this great country. Also today happens to be the one month marker for the day that Ryley died so the white candle on the left is for him. Ryley I miss you like crazy and I love you with all my heart! I'm so proud of you! Thank you for continuing to be my hero, watching over me and comforting me constantly..

Homesick...

One morning at breakfast before deployment...

Packing... Gosh I love that face... He always loved when I said gosh..... he said it always made him smile... that wonderful amazing smile I miss so much.. the one I heard on his face and saw all the time..

On a train in Chicago after getting married...

A picture he sent me while he was still on his way to Afghanistan.. He loved sending me random pictures and stealing my phone when I wasn't in the room and taking pictures of himself...

What to say...

Ryley Gallinger-Long July 4, 1992-August 11,2011..... I decided to make my blog public again.. I can't run from this forever, it's my life now and I need to be open and honest and my life is now very out in the open and I need to embrace it more than hide from it... I never wanted this, but life rarely works out the way we want it too. I miss my best friend, the love of my life, and I can't wait for the day that we can pick up where we left off...

I'm slow, but SC trip pictures!!

So last month I was able to go to Surfside and Myrtle Beach with my family in Maryland! It was so great being able to spend that week with them! I had a great time! Thank you all again for taking me!!
I didn't take a lot of pictures, but luckily my grandparents and aunts did so their blogs are a little better than mine lol.
Here are some pictures of our first beach trip, one of many trips to the beach :) The water was so nice! Our group had tons of very colorful umbrellas (which made it very easy to remember where we were when coming out of the water).

Down the beach from us..

There were a lot of fishers down on the pier all throughout the day. Some people were catching sharks!
One of the days that we were down there we decided to see some of the different attractions. My Aunt Trudy and Uncle Steve went with their kids to see alligators and snakes, and the rest of us went to the Brookgreen Gardens. It was a really hot day, but the gardens were so pretty! There was a lot of art and poetry mixed in with all the plants and beautiful landscapes. These aren't in any particular order, I had a hard time choosing which pictures to post from the gardens..

This sculpure of the pegasus is the biggest sculpure they have there..

Samson and the Lion..

Cool palm tree bark. This palm tree is actually SC's state tree..

Little pond with a little boy holding frogs in each hand..

Big great oaks with spanish moss hanging from the branches..

The muses..

another pond I can't remember which sculpture this one is..

Grandma next to a huge plant!

An outside sculpture gallery of sorts...

One of the many fountains, I really like this one!

Spanish moss..

Some turtles sunning themselves..

Freaky sign lol. We later learned that sometimes alligators will wander into the park

These little guys were all over the place, my uncle Lincoln picked this one up and when he went to put it back down it really did not want to leave his hand lol

Big nasty spiders that were everywhere when we got to the zoo part of the gardens!

Native birds in the swampy area..

Tree climbing red foxes! I guess the native fox to SC is the gray fox and when the English first came here they were really excited to start up their fox hunts till they found out the gray fox climbed trees. So they imported the red fox for funner sport, but to their dissapointment the red fox started to learn to climb trees too lol


Otters going after the fish being thrown in by the guide

Big ole alligator that has been in the park since it was first established.. She didn't feed this one, it's against state law for anyone other than zoo keepers to feed alligators because they don't like the alligators associating food with people, and they had a problem with civilians feeding them as well. So our guide said that he knows it's feeding time when he hears the golf cart of the zoo keeper. He swam right up to us! Luckily there was a fence and we didn't see any more alligators through the rest of the park! lol

We ended our trip at the gardens with the butterfly house, it was kind of hard to get good pictures of some of them but they were beautiful!! By the end it was getting ready to rain so it was cooler and we were able to take our time to enjoy the butterflies.

We went mini golfing, spent lots of time on the beach, spent some time in the lazy river at the resort we were staying in, played lots of games, and had a great time during that week in SC!! :)

Ryley's Leave

Ryley was home for almost 2 weeks before leaving and it was great! We got him all moved into the apartment (and with all of his stuff tons of sand). He was so happy to be home! He was eating real food, driving his Jeep, and he had me and his family and friends all here for him. He wasn't too happy to be leaving. The day after he got here he just had to take the top off of his Jeep and we went driving, the top was down the majority of the time he was home.

Wyatt is totally into all of Ryley's medical stuff, which Ryley was super excited to show us all. We had his med bag out for most of the night and he did some fun demonstrations with the tourniquets. :) It was fun for me and Susan, but Wyatt was in a lot of pain when Ryley was putting all of his weight on his inner thigh and shoulder. There Wyatt is with the tourniquets and Ryley either just got done checking for a pulse, is about to, or is just poking Wyatts arm because Wyatt says it was tingly and numb. Both Wyatt and Susan were here for the twins birthday. :) I made them German Chocolate cake and much to their dismay put candles on it as well.
Wyatt was supposed to be flying out that night, but his flight was canceled (luckily for him he had applied for his leave and it had been approved or they wouldn't have worked with him on being a day late).
We went out to eat a couple of times while he was home too. His favorite so far is Texas Roadhouse. We went there once with his mom and Wyatt and the second time we went with his buddy Bullis.

Then it was time to say goodbye. It was not a fun day at all! Tried to put on a good face (which at the beginning was easy). We were on base all day getting ready for them to leave.

Ryley and his buddy Bullis.

Saying goodbye...

Not a fun day... I'm ready for him to come home already! I do have to say though that not being used to having him around normally has made it a little easier because sadly I'm used to this. The week and a half that he was home was great and I'm so happy I was able to spend so much time with him before he left! I'm also really happy that his brother and mom were able to make it as well! It all went really well!

My first half a week

I'm finally in North Carolina!! :) It has been such a crazy week since I landed and I am so happy that things are slowly getting better!

I hit kind of a rough patch after I signed the lease for the apartment and got the Jeep on Wednesday. I kept killing the Jeep, my apartment had furniture in it and was filthy, I was exhausted, and after the humiliation of having to have my neighbors push me into my parking spot and then drive around with me and show me the stuff close by I broke down... on the phone with a couple of people... and finally made a bed out of the couch and crashed.

Thursday I called the office of the apartment and complained. 5 minutes after I called a whole work team came in and cleaned out all the furniture and I started showing them what was wrong... They moved me into the apartment next door (cause they had a few hours of a work list in front of them) and cleaned the place really well! They cleaned the mess in the kitchen including the mold in the cuboards and on the closet doors, the bathroom, the windows (and replaced a blind), re-shampooed the carpets, etc. After they left I bought a bed and ventured out to Walmart for food and did not kill my Jeep (OH HAPPY DAY!!).

Friday I looked around for other furniture. I'm going to have to wait till Ryley comes home for that, the Jeep is too small to transport anything so I think I'm going to try to talk one of his friends into helping us out. This is also the day that the glass from the light fell right after I shut the door and had luckily moved out of the way.. so the apartment office got another call and they came out and fixed it. Ryley was also able to call me (they were on base for a couple of hours) so I was able to vent to him for a little bit and tell him that things were starting to go better and it was SO nice being able to talk to him!!!

Yesterday I just took it easy. I drove around a bit to find the church and in the process found out how to get to the bases main gate and a lot of other stores. Then I just came home and was lazy, it was really nice. :)

Today I had church and I really like the ward! If Ryley isn't here by Thursday I will be going to the Military Wifes Support Group (something I was strongly encouraged to do) and I'm getting really excited to meet more people here! :)
Hopefully the pallet with the rest of our stuff gets here tomorrow so that it can feel a little more like our home now than just some weird new temporary place.

1 day!!!!!!!!!!

I fly out tomorrow!! :D So crazy!! I have butterflies going crazy in my stomach, I'm so nervous and excited!! This morning Delta Airlines are having problems with their website, SUCH A PAIN!! So unless it's back up and allowing me to check-in for my flight there will probably be a lot of people getting their passes at the kiosk (when I called the woman told me I wasn't the only one who had been calling in with the website not loading when we click to check-in online ugh!!). Good thing I'm going there an hour early! We leave for the airport at 4 and my flight leaves at 6:20, I have an hour and 15 minute lay over in Atlanta, and then I land in Jacksonville at 4:25. It's going to be a LONG day....